


Three Out Of Two

by leiascully



Category: House M.D.
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-08-25
Updated: 2006-08-24
Packaged: 2017-10-02 22:35:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cuddy decides House is right about a potential donor. Babymaking ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. easy to say but it's harder to feel

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: Set in late S2 ("Who's Your Daddy?" references) and a theoretical early S3.  
> A/N: This is an AU where the ketamine worked and we get the Happy!House we saw in early S3. The title is shamelessly stolen from Joshua Radin's "The Fear You Won't Fall".  
> Disclaimer: _House M.D._ and all related characters are property of Heel and Toe Films, Shore Z Productions and Bad Hat Harry Productions in association with NBC Universal Television Studio. I make no money from writing this and no infringement is intended, just deep admiration and a need to fill in some blanks.

Cuddy was surprised by what a gentleman House could be. She had been sure any tender feelings in him had been killed by the clot that ruined his leg until the day he limped into her office with the good news that she didn't have cancer. There was something a little different in his eyes. She had never realized he watched her with such intensity; it made her a little uncomfortable, that he'd been tracking her behavior, that he knew her so well without her knowing it. Without her knowing him much beyond his brilliance in the office and his brusque ways and his innuendo and his incredible focus and attention to detail.

"Cuddy?" he said, in her office again afterhours without Wilson, and the sound of his voice brought her back. He was watching her with his head tipped a little to the side and his eyes narrowed slightly. He had an amazing capacity for focusing when the need was present and all of that attention was focused on her. She found herself breathing a little faster. His blue eyes were calm, his face fairly impassive, and he knew this enormous thing about her and he was offering his help, in some twisted House way. Her heart was beating sideways, she thought, but she looked at him and his earnest eyes and she stopped fighting.

He kept her secret. That was the amazing thing. House had never kept his mouth shut in his life, as far as she knew. Even in college, he had been legendary for saying all the wrong insightful things in front of all the wrong people, but never without purpose.

She asked him for help with her shots, and startled herself by almost looking forward to it. It was erotic, in a strange intense way: she could see him only as a vague reflection in the window on cloudy days. She closed her eyes against the chill of the alcohol pad moving in slow circles over the rounded muscle of her ass, House's fingers firm against her skin through the cloth. He flattened his palm over the curve of her ass and the heat and pressure of his hand made her forget the needle as he jabbed her. There was one moment of sharp pain that made her gasp, and then the texture of House's thumb against the mark of the needle prick. Through the day she would shift in her seat or flex just right as she was walking and feel the momentary ache of the spot and think of House.

"You know, Bach is better than Mozart," he offered one evening, his hand still warm against her, his thumb rubbing gently to soothe the tiny hurt. "And Miles Davis is better than either of them, if you're going for sheer inspiration."

"I'll keep that in mind," she said, straightening and letting her skirt fall back into place, ruffled briefly by his hand as he withdrew it.

"Is this my audition?" he asked, looking at his hands as he packed away the syringe and the little bottles of fluid.

She froze. "That wasn't my intention."

"Wilson at least got dinner out of the deal."

"Wilson paid for his own dinner, House. What are you trying to say?"

He looked up. "Want to go to dinner, Cuddy?"

That was the night she realized she had been slowly falling in love with him for years. He was on a case, so they went to a small close restaurant, nothing fancy, North African food. She made him eat couscous with his hands so she could watch the elegance of his long fingers, and they had a glass of wine apiece and he laughed, even though she knew he was in pain the way he kept reaching into his pocket for the Vicodin and glancing at her and coming up empty-handed. He was charming. He licked his fingers and looked over at her with his eyes dancing, undignified as all hell, and she knew why Stacy had loved him so much. She remembered House before the infarction: a little merrier, always a thorn in her side but less brittle, fewer barbs. Now they were both older and wiser, with the ache of his leg between them, and something was healing that she had forgotten was wounded.

There was a magic about him that she had been resisting, but her resistance was spent. He was still House, brusque and too honest and sometimes a pain in her ass, but there was a gentleness about him since he had riddled out the secret of her fertility treatments that she found irresistible. She trusted him. She liked him. Dammit, he was right, the way he always was: it should be someone she liked. He paid and called a cab to take them back to the hospital and she went back to her office and put all the donor files in her bottom drawer and didn't look at them.

She went to his office the next morning, wanting to say something to him, anything about the sudden new surge of affection and the frustration she had always transmuted from her desire, but he looked at her with a concern touched with an anxiety only Stacy or Wilson or she would know was there and she was out of declarations.

"Thank you for the injections," she said instead, her expression all out of step with the professionalism of her words, hoping he could read her the way he always did.

"You're welcome," he said. His voice was soft and she knew she had to leave before she kissed him. She turned, walked toward the door, and paused when he spoke again. "You came all the way up here just to tell me that?"

She turned, and smiled. "No." He knew. She left.

And then he was shot, and she felt like dying herself, until his miracle cure. He was happy the way she'd never seen him and she was blissful and she gave them both a couple of months to settle in to this new life and every day she loved him a little more. Cuddy loved watching him, striding firm and square and joyful down the halls, his shoulders high.

"House," she called after him at last, her voice a little husky. She hoped that he would still need her now that he was whole again. He walked back over to her with the crooked little smile that was his default expression these days and crowded up in her personal space the way he always did. These days her body feinted towards his, like weak magnets.

"Cuddy. To what do I owe the pleasure of this impromptu conference? Need a consult?"

She hesitated and motioned him down. He leaned in, smelling of good cologne. "Yes?" he murmured, close to her ear.

"Do you want to have dinner?" she said, as quietly as she could.

"State secrets," he said, and there was laughter in the words. "Should I ask Wilson?"

"No, just you." She bit her lip, his face unseen by the side of hers.

"Hmmmm," he said, and it was sexy somehow, the quiet vibration of his throat. "Is this my audition?"

"You passed your audition," she said. He breathed into her hair and it was almost a kiss, and then he drew back and was off again down the hall.

"We'll go someplace nice," he said over his shoulder, and he whistled a little as he sauntered away.

They went to a good restaurant and she wished he could eat with his fingers again, but they weren't that far along in whatever this was for him to discard manners for her. They had been colleagues for so long that she was nervous about trying to be friends, and more about trying to be lovers. Since the ketamine, he had changed, though he was still the brilliant doctor that he'd always been, hopelessly irresponsible but for the best causes. She licked her lips and watched him order, trying to keep the little crease from forming between her eyebrows. House picked a good red wine and she had a bare sip of it from his side of the glass. Her lips covered the print of his lips and she thought of how she'd never even kissed this man and now she was going to try to produce a child with him.

"You're freaking out, Cuddy," he said as she passed his glass back. "Relax. I've been reading up on this stuff. Besides, how long have we known each other? Since college. I remember you before you were a babe. In geologic time, that makes us practically lovers already."

She blushed and he grinned. She turned her attention to her food, but she could feel his eyes on her.

"Do you want to know what I've been reading?" he asked. "I made Cameron do a lot of research so she'd get that funny look on her face. I'm hoping one of these days she'll just drag Chase off into the coma patient's room and make him knock her up. Having a baby would give her something totally helpless to take care of and then maybe she'd stop looking at me like she thinks I'm still a cripple."

Cuddy choked on her salad. "House!"

"Relax," he said again, drawing out the word a little. "Your secret's still secret. I had an excuse. Some middle-aged mommy I got on clinic duty. I haven't told anyone. How could I deal with the rampant jealousy among my staff? I'm pretty sure Foreman's been hoping for my job for a while. Anyway, it's good we're doing this now. I could still be virile for a good twenty years, but you're running out of time."

"I had a physical," she said. "I'm perfectly healthy."

"I know. You work out, you eat right, you have no bad habits, and hey, it's not like you have a high-stress job."

"That being mostly your fault," she snapped, but he chuckled and her anger melted away.

"I've been playing nice, haven't I?" He pulled his most innocent face and she smiled at him involuntarily. "I'm sure anyone as lush as you isn't going to have a problem conceiving, Cuddy. Your hormone levels are fine, you've been good to your body, and you've definitely got the equipment. Plus the fertility meds. You've played it safe. It'll be fine."

She liked how the lechery hadn't gone out of him, but it was modulated into the conversation these days. They finished their meals. He lingered over a cup of dark bitter coffee and she nibbled a fruit tart, and when they got into the car, he tipped her face up with one finger and kissed her. His chin was scratchy but his lips were gentle and she was so hormonal from the treatments and her confusion over him that she almost started crying. He tasted like coffee. She hadn't been kissed in so long. And House, god, he kissed like he meant it. His hand had worked its way into her hair when she was distracted and she couldn't help whimpering just a bit about how good his fingers felt near her skin, how good it felt to be touched by him even in these small ways.

"Are you sure about this, Cuddy?" he whispered, his fingers still tangled in her hair.

She looked into his blue eyes that were so close. "Yes. No. I want to do it anyway." She bit her lip to keep herself from dismissing the conversation with more kisses. "You were right. You're someone I trust. You're someone I...like. Your medical history isn't the best, but that's partly my fault. Are you sure?"

"Hey," he said, "I wouldn't have volunteered to be your baby daddy if I didn't think it would be a pretty great baby. I'm just glad you seem to have decided we can do this the old-fashioned way. Lots more fun, I promise." She let out a quick breath that was almost a laugh and his eyes lit up. "You gave me another chance at life, Lisa. I owe you. And even if I didn't owe you, I'd still want to be your baby daddy." He detangled his hand from her curls and ran one finger down her cheek. "You're smart. You're beautiful. You don't let me get away with everything but you still let me work. Any man in his right mind would want to be your baby daddy."

"Please stop using that phrase," she whispered.

"How are you going to stop me?"

She kissed him and they were both laughing through it. Cuddy backed off reluctantly after a moment and put the car into drive. He held her hand part of the way home, spreading her fingers and tracing patterns on her palm. Here was the romance that he'd stifled, that had poisoned him. She said a quick silent thanks to Stacy's husband Mark for existing and unlocked her door with shaky hands. Inside the house, she wasn't sure what to do, but House kissed her again and led her to the bathroom and turned on the shower. He undressed her slowly as the water heated up, kissing her on the bare skin that his nimble fingers exposed so that she was too distracted to be embarassed. The bathroom began to fill with steam as he let her peel his shirt over his head and unbutton his jeans. Naked, he was long and lean and unequivocally the right choice, and he looked at her like a man having an epiphany.

Under the spray of the water he soaped her skin gently, twisting her hair up out of the water with one hand. She tied her hair in a quick knot to free his hands and leaned against his chest as he washed her back, sliding his palm over her shoulders, her spine, her ass until she was so turned on she could hardly breathe. She ran her soapy hands over any part of him that she could reach, and let him wash her face, just his fingertips delicate over her cheekbones as she closed her eyes. She had to reach up to touch his face, the rough stubble softened a little by the hot water, and as she raised her arms, he cupped her breasts.

"Greg," she breathed, her hands slipping to his shoulders, and she held onto him as he washed her breasts, her belly, her thighs, sliding a warm hand between her legs as his mouth moved to her breasts. She could feel the muscles of his arms working, the play of groups against each other as he touched her. Her world narrowed to the chill of the tile against her back, the heat between her legs, and the tension of his muscles. He leaned forward to kiss her and her arms slid around his neck. From somewhere in her throat came a high keening noise she hadn't known she could make and his fingers played over her and the world was narrowing still and he was hot and rough hard and real against her and his hands and she was trying to say his name but the whole world had convulsed and she was weak and panting against him and he was still kissing her, more tender than she had ever imagined. He reached behind himself to twist the water off and lifted her carefully out of the shower, carrying her to the bed.

He had been doing his reading. He propped her hips at a slant with a pillow and kissed a line down her front. She watched him, limp with desire and a sort of half-afterglow. He was beautiful in the dim light of her bedroom, looming over her, impossibly male, impossibly House. He rubbed his stubbled cheeks gently over her collarbones and her stomach and she whimpered. His mouth closed over her nipple and she moaned, and he paused and lifted his head and stretched out beside her.

She looked at him, mouth quivering a little, afraid of what he'd say. His eyes were dark, but there wasn't enough light to show the exact details of his expression, and she turned her head away. "Changed your mind, House?" Tears pricked at her eyes.

"This is going to change things, Lisa," he said seriously. "I'm going to be possessive about you. I'm going to want to be around, if this works out. The downside to having your kid's genetic material come from someone you know is that it's more of an investment, and they get to have some say in the kid's life. I'm not going to be casual about this. You've meant more to me than that. A kid would mean more to me than that. I'm not sure how this will go, but we'll have to work it out."

Then she was crying, softly, overwhelmed with happiness and some kind of relief. He turned her face toward him with one hand and kissed her forehead. "Okay?" he murmured.

"Better than I hoped," she said, and kissed him for all the loneliness they'd both suffered over the years. She pushed her mouth hard against his, hungry for the kiss, and he responded with lips and tongue until their teeth clicked together. He put his hand on her hip and then moved it down, his fingers pushing into her, and then he rolled over and moved over her. Her toes tingled. She had never had unprotected sex. She had a vague idea that it was better than anything else, despite all her medical training.

"Cuddy...I've never done this with this kind of purpose before. You know you may not get pregnant the first time," he said, his head bumping against her in a way that made her want to wrap her legs around his ass and force him inside.

"Then we'll just have to persevere," she said, and he grinned and pushed slowly into her. She shifted a little, adjusting to him. It had been too long since she'd had sex. It had been too long since there'd be anyone she'd really wanted to have sex with and she was suddenly passionately glad that it was House here in her bed. Here in her body, even, and watching her all the time with those eyes. She wasn't sure if absence made the heart grow fonder, but years of involuntary abstinence had made the sex better. Just the bulk of him against her was unbearably exciting. She moved her hips against him, goading him, but he just kissed her neck and continued to move slowly. She could feel the puckering of his scars against the inside of her thigh, half a guilty memory and half welcome extra friction.

"House," she moaned. His weight pushed her thighs apart and she hooked one leg over him. He was startlingly adept at this. He reached for the pillow under her and pushed it so that her hips were better angled.

"You can call me Greg if you want," he said against the hollow of her throat, his words humming through her clavicles. He was breathing harder. "God, Cuddy. Is this good?"

"Mmmm," was all she could manage, on a rising scale. He bent one arm under her neck and touched her with his other hand, circling her clit, and he had found her G-spot somehow and he had finally sped up, his breath sounding more and more ragged as he kissed her. His flanks trembled against her and he groaned softly. Her toes curled and tingled and she pushed her mouth against his collarbones.

"Lisa," he hissed, and then groaned louder and his hips jerked against her. She reached down, frantic fingers joining his as he moved roughly in her, and she saw stars against the dim ceiling of her bedroom, and stars in his eyes. He bent to kiss her again, deeply, slowing the rock of his hips against hers. When he pulled out, she felt hollow, incomplete. She was shivering a little with the aftershock of the pleasure.

"You should stay there," he said, with one hand on her hip. "For a few minutes, at least. Give the little guys a chance to find the mothership." He swung his legs over the side of the bed and vanished into the bathroom. She heard the water running. After a moment he came out with a cup of water and a damp washcloth, and she sipped from the cup as he ran the washcloth over her.

"Greg," she said softly, watching his body outlined by the faint glow of her bathroom nightlight.

"If you're planning to thank me, don't bother," he said, but not brusquely, and set the cup on a magazine on her nightstand. "I can't handle the incessant adulation."

She smiled. "That was pretty incredible, but I wasn't going to thank you." She hesitated. "Do you want to stay?"

The corners of his lips quirked. "Might as well protect my investment," he said. "Make sure you aren't shooting up someone else's stuff in the wee hours. Think of the potential embarassment if my kid grew up to be interested in oncology or neurology."

"House!" He chuckled and lay down next to her, and his laugh was fast becoming her favourite sound in the world. He kissed her shoulder and she turned her face against him, pushing her nose into his hair. He smelled good, like her bodywash and clean sweat. They lay that way for several minutes and she breathed him in.

"I think," he mumbled after a while, "that you could put those pillows to other purposes now, like under our heads." She roused and moved slowly off the pillows, a little sore here and there, and found a clean pair of underwear, a little self-conscious, but sleepy. He scrabbled to find the edge of the comforter and dragged it over them as she punched the pillow drowsily back into shape and tossed it under his head. He stretched out and she lined her body up against his, her head and her arm on his chest and her leg draped over his, so that she could feel his scars again and the firmness of the thigh muscle around it. He was a miracle.

"I'm happy," she said, as he settled his arm around her, fingers curled so that the tips were against her lower back and the knuckles grazed the lacy hem of her panties, and she would have wanted him again if she hadn't been so drowsy, just the feel of his fingers on her skin.

He kissed her hair. "Cuddy," he said, and it sounded like an endearment.


	2. high as my heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He had been in love with only Stacy for so long that any feelings he might have had for anyone else had been sublimated into his brooding, but now he was free. Or maybe free was the wrong word, but he was revenged, or exonerated, or martyred, or heaven help him, moving on, and what he knew was that he liked seeing Cuddy at the end of the day and knowing that he'd put the smile on her face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline: A hypothetical mid-S3 where Cuddy is pregnant and House is the father.   
> A/N: Kind of a companion piece to [easy to say but it's harder to feel](http://community.livejournal.com/house_cuddy/239327.html) but you wouldn't have to read that one to get this one. And this one isn't smutty. I've taken liberties with lyricism and romance.   
> Disclaimer: _House M.D._ and all related characters are property of Heel and Toe Films, Shore Z Productions and Bad Hat Harry Productions in association with NBC Universal Television Studio. I make no money from writing this and no infringement is intended, just deep admiration and a need to fill in some blanks.

**JAQUES** What stature is she of?  
**ORLANDO** Just as high as my heart.  
**JAQUES** You are full of pretty answers.  
\- William Shakespeare, _As You Like It_ III, ii

\+ + + +

Cuddy in the early months of her pregnancy blossomed like a rose. House tried to find a new simile, something less clichéd and more suited to Cuddy's strength, but he saw the light flush on her cheeks and the glow of her skin and kept coming back to roses. Lovely, thorny, complicated Cuddy, delicately formed but enduring, like the brambly wild roses that twined into fences with their tiny flowers and the perfume that could fill a meadow. Cuddy's happiness was like that, perfuming the hospital so that House was sure that the coma patient would comment on it soon.

He had been well for five months. Cuddy had been pregnant for two of them, since not long after the evening she'd told him he'd passed his audition and they had gone out for dinner and then back to her house. House, when he thought about it, was almost regretful that she had gotten pregnant so quickly, after only a couple of weeks, but she was healthy and on fertility medication, and they had made the most of those weeks in bed. She teased him that it was a testament to his motor skills, that his sperm were so fresh and vigorous, and he said that there had never been anything wrong with that particular leg, and kissed her forehead.

Things were different between them. They had been since he had found out that she wanted a baby. She had intrigued him in a different way, with this new and somewhat unexpected desire, and she had treated him differently too. They fought less, partly, he thought, because he'd been shot and that had jolted all of them, but partly because she had made a confidant of him, more like a friend than an employee. Now more like a lover, he thought, but who knew how long that would go on? She let him kiss her because she had grown used to it, or was there more between them? He wasn't sure any night whether he'd end up at her place or his, though he spent an increasing amount of time learning the rooms of her house in the dark. He lived in a glad uncertainty.

"Cuddy seems happy these days," said Wilson as they played catch with House's ball on their adjoining balconies. The air was crisp, but not too cold. Fall was going easy on them.

"Mmm," House agreed, noncommital. He jogged to the other end of the balcony, eyed the distance, and bounced the ball over his wall into Wilson's hands.

"Did you ever find out why she was taking those supplements?" Wilson asked, tossing the ball back. House caught it easily.

"No," he lied cheerfully. "Must have been a date. Maybe she just wanted to see if she could understand why all those women sleep with you." He winged the ball at Wilson, who put his hands in front of his face and caught it and looked at House with his best exasperated expression.

"You are incorrigible."

"On the contrary, I'm quite corrigible. Throw it."

Wilson tossed the ball to him with a thoughtful expression. "You seem happy these days too."

"I'm a whole new man. Maybe I've been taking Cuddy's red clover. Something to all those wacky New Agers after all." He threw the ball from hand to hand. "I can walk again, Wilson. Of course I'm happy."

"Mobility didn't help before the infarction," said Wilson drily. He looked at his watch. "I've got a appointment. I'll see you for lunch."

House stayed out on the balcony, looking over the grounds and rolling his ball along the little balustrade. The pregnancy was a secret from everyone but the two of them and Cuddy's OB/GYN, but sometimes he wished he could tell Wilson. Fatherhood was something he had never really considered before; Stacy had been happy enough with the responsibilities of her career and putting up with him. He found he was enjoying the prospect more than he'd expected, or maybe it was the residual high of well-kept secrets and the gentle light in Cuddy's eyes. She wasn't rounding out yet, but there was a new gravity about her and she laughed more often. He found himself smiling, thinking of it.

Cuddy was strong. She'd go it alone if he decided he wanted nothing to do with the child, but now that he'd started this thing, he had an impulse to see it through. Maybe every son wanted to redeem the sins of his father. House liked kids well enough. They had their own brand of candor before they grew up and filled themselves with the bullshit of the world and their parents. He owed Cuddy. That was twice she'd brought him back to life now. He wondered if she felt possessive of him because of it, the way he felt possessive of her now. Wilson was going to get suspicious soon, the way House kept touching Cuddy, just little things like his fingers under her elbow, his hand at the small of her back as he opened a door.

He heard the door open and Cuddy appeared as if he'd conjured her.

"Hey," she said, with that secret gleam in her eyes and the flush high on her cheekbone.

"Hey," he said back, lounging with one elbow on the wall, trying to keep a smile off his lips. "Are you here to scold me?"

"Why, have you been worse than usual?" She came and leaned on the wall next to him. "Where's your team?"

"Sent them off to seminars. Ethics, I think. They're supposed to keep me in line, remember? Figured after all this corruption, they could use some brushing up."

"You don't have to take these kinds of chances," she said. "With the patients. We know you're brilliant. I don't know if it's anxiety over this thing or some kind of arrogance from being reborn, but there's only so far you can push the envelope before I'll have to fire you." But she was smiling as she said it.

"If you fire me, I'm moving in. I'll sit around all day and watch tv."

"You'll paint the nursery," she countered. He laughed softly.

"When did this become something more than a business arrangement?" he asked of no one in particular.

"College," she said. "Why do you think I hired you? You were every starry-eyed undergrad's dream. Why wouldn't I want to fulfill that?" He looked at her, startled, and she looked back with a quick flash of humor in her face. "Or am I lying?"

"That would be some delayed gratification."

"I get mine in the end," she said, and he laughed again.

"Don't I know it." He ducked his head briefly, looking her up and down. "How are you feeling?"

"A little sick this morning, as well you know. Otherwise, I'm fine. I'm starving."

"Nobody yaks like you, Cuddy," he said absently, staring over the grounds.

"House, that might be the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

"I'm quite the romantic," he said, and straightened up, enjoying the way she had to tip her face to look at him, as if she were waiting to be kissed. In her bare feet, her head only came up to his collarbones, but in her daytime heels, she was taller. "What are we doing, Cuddy?"

"I'm not sure," she said, "but I like it." She smiled at him and he felt the prickle of tiny thorns wound around his heart. He remembered her suddenly in college, with this same driven brightness. Among all the undergrads, she had stood out as something special. He wished he had paid her more attention then, instead of the brief acquaintance that consisted mostly of shared cups of mediocre coffee and a couple of sessions in the library.

"Come back, Greg," she was saying, and he shook his head to dissipate the memory. "Can I have some extra clinic hours from you this week, since you don't have a case yet?"

"I thought knocking up the boss exempted me from clinic duty," he said, pulling a pout.

"Just gets you dinner," she said.

"In that case, let's see," he said. There was a flutter of movement in the office. "I'll give you two extra hours unless that's one of the kids with some stunning new case."

Cameron burst through the door, a little breathless, and stumbled to a halt. She glanced at Cuddy, looking confused, and held out a manila folder. "Just got in at the ER. Weirdest rash I've ever seen. No preexisting allergies. Brought in with anaphylactic shock and severe chills."

He smirked at Cuddy. "Looks like I've got work to do. See you later, boss." He took the file from Cameron and flipped through it, walking into the office. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Cameron still staring at Cuddy, and behind him he could sense the elaborate nonchalance as Cuddy arranged herself in her professional mode and followed along.

"You still owe me your regular clinic hours, Dr. House," she reminded him as she breezed out, and he waved her off. Cameron was staring after Cuddy with slightly narrowed eyes, looking speculative instead of wicked.

"What did she want?"

"Hmm? Cuddy? Trying to con me into extra clinic hours." He sat down, absorbed in the file. "Why did you bring me this? It should have gone to immunology. It's possible that an allergy developed recently and they just haven't found it yet, and that's not my job. It's not impressive if anyone can solve it. Cycle it through them." He closed the file and pushed it toward Cameron. She raised her hands, palms toward him in a gesture of helplessness.

"Immunology wants you on it."

His mouth quirked to one side with annoyance and he scratched his cheek thoughtfully. "Well, round up the boys and get Foreman on some scratch testing and the detailed history. You and Chase go search the house and the workplace." He looked up at her expectantly. "Get going, Cameron."

"I was just..." she began, and then paused and closed her mouth. She gathered up the copies of the file from the edge of his desk and hugged them to her chest as she went out. House watched her go. Cameron was emotional, but she wasn't dumb. She would figure out something was going on, the way she'd watched him and Cuddy since that kid had fallen off Cuddy's roof. But then, it was only a matter of time anyway. Cuddy's frame was too lean to hide any sort of bulge.

He flipped through his copy of the file again. Middle-aged female, address somewhere out in the country. Found outside by her husband, who had been an EMT and kept an epi pen around just in case. Probably a gardener, inhaling pesticides, or getting bug bites, or weeding with bare hands and pulling up poison sumac or nightshade or horsenettle and burning them, or some combination of the above. On a whim, he Googled "gardening" and clicked through a number of links. Organic gardening to starting your kids on growing vegetables to wildflowers to roses. At least while he was waiting for the team to find something this woman was allergic to, he could do something useful with his time, like learning the language of roses, in case he ever had to buy someone flowers. Roses were for secrets, he found; he and Cuddy were living sub rosa with this pregnancy thing, under the symbol of the rose, keeping the secret. And sub rosa to her, at least as far as voicing it went, was the thought that she was the best thing to happen to him in a long time, maybe the best thing to happen to him ever, aside from Stacy and his M.D.

He thought about his malarial journalist, how he'd tried to have surgery to make himself the man the woman who loved him thought he was. House wondered if the wife had ever come back. Surgery had made him the man that Stacy hadn't known he was, or at least emphasized the parts that she could deal with less. He didn't blame her for leaving. He wondered if she would have stayed if he had gotten the amputuation, but that kind of speculation was pointless. Cuddy hadn't left him or fired him after the infarction, and she'd never married someone else. She was gorgeous and she was brainy and she did her job well and gave his shit right back to him, and he thought she was falling in love with him, a little. He wasn't sure what was going on with himself. He had been in love with only Stacy for so long that any feelings he might have had for anyone else had been sublimated into his brooding, but now he was free. Or maybe free was the wrong word, but he was revenged, or exonerated, or martyred, or heaven help him, moving on, and what he knew was that he liked seeing Cuddy at the end of the day and knowing that he'd put the smile on her face.

Cuddy kept the faith, he thought, and grinned to himself.

"You're looking happy again." Wilson leaned in through the door. "I would ask if it's your case, but I ran into Cameron in the hallway looking disgusted, so I can only imagine you had a good conversation with Cuddy on the balcony there."

"Jimmy!" said House, and got up. "Have I told you lately how much I value our friendship?"

"You've never told me how much you value our friendship," said Wilson, and put his hands on his hips. "What's going on?"

"What, I need a reason to appreciate you now? I'm going down to the gym. Want to come? You can be my towel boy."

"And watch you sweat? No thanks." But he followed House anyway. "Seriously, what's up with you and Cuddy? It seems like every time I turn around, you guys are having secret conversations or giving each other significant looks across decreasing amounts of space. Do you know something I don't know?"

"The number of things I know that you don't know is too vast to be calculated on the run," said House cheerfully. "Oh, fine, you caught us. We were planning your surprise party. Now it's ruined. We were going to get you a pinata and everything."

"Are you back on Vicodin?" said Wilson, with a touch of incredulity.

"Runner's high," said House, and jogged backwards a few steps. "See? If you need me, or just want to throw out some more weird theories about me and Cuddy, I'll be pounding the rubber." He paused and tilted his head. "That doesn't sound quite right, does it?"

He had logged several miles before his team showed up, gathering around the treadmill as if it were story hour. House shook the headphones from his ears and dropped them on the console.

"Immunology says..." began Cameron.

"Yeah, yeah. Ask her about her gardening habits. See if she's picked any weird weeds lately, or if she's been burning, or if she composts."

"You think she's into pesticides?" asked Foreman.

"See how you don't bother asking me the stupid questions about how I knew about the gardening? I like that. Saves time. Is she presenting with any kind of GI distress?"

"She said she was vomiting before," said Chase. "That could lead to the chills, I guess, sort of a side reaction."

"Go forth!" House puffed, panting a little, and waved a hand at them. "Do my bidding. Check for the pesticides and dose her up with steroids for the poison ivy or poison sumac she's probably got, which gave her the allergic reaction. She'll be out of here by dinnertime."

For once it was true. They were all out by dinnertime, or at least done. House rubbed a towel over his damp hair and went up to the office. His team was there, sitting around the table looking a little dazed, like they weren't sure they could leave. Cuddy wasn't there, but she'd emailed, craving Mexican food. House walked out to the balcony and hurled his ball at Wilson's door.

"Want to get some dinner?" he asked, when Wilson stuck his head out.

"Can't. I've got a consult."

"We should order in. Play some poker. Do you guys carry a lot of cash?" he yelled in to the kids.

"What?" They came out on the balcony, crowding through the door.

"We should have a poker night. Maybe not tonight, though. I want to give you plenty of time to get to the ATM."

"Don't you usually play with people off the streets?" said Cameron. "Why would you suddenly want to play poker with us?"

"More fun to take money from you. I can lord it over you for the rest of your career." She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms.

"As if we're all going to be working under you forever," said Foreman. "But I'm game. Not tonight, though. I've got plans with my girlfriend."

"Excellent!" said House. "We're all agreed. Wilson's blowing off his consult and we're going out for Mexican. You guys are dismissed for the evening. Go home. Have fun, or whatever it is you do. Chase, maybe you should take Cameron out for a drink."

Chase made his startled face and shoved his hands in his pockets. "You dictating our social lives now, Boss?"

"Well, Foreman's clearly getting laid tonight. Wilson's probably getting laid tonight, given that he has that irresistably boyish charm. I have an escort service preprogrammed into my phone. That leaves you and Cameron all by your lonesomes, and there's only so much sexual frustration I can take in my department." He reached for his wallet. "Here's a twenty. That ought to get her pretty smashed."

Cameron protested but House was already ignoring her. "Come on, Wilson. You know you want to."

Wilson sighed. "Can you give me half an hour?"

"Excellent." He turned back to his team, who were standing in various poses of embarassment, outrage, and amusement. "Well, Chase, you have to ask the girl."

Chase looked off sideways. "I liked you better before you got cured."

"That's the spirit." House walked back into the office. "Go away now. Live your lives."

He called Cuddy after the kids had left, Foreman smirking and Cameron with her nose in the air but Chase at her shoulder. "I invited Wilson to dinner," he said without prologue.

"Subtle," she said.

"He was asking all sorts of nosy questions. I figured if he actually saw us together, he'd either figure out something's going on and be satisfied or decide nothing's going on and continue leading his blissful life. Remember, this is the man who stole your spoon to test you for cancer. He's just devious enough to riddle out why we've been sighted together so often lately."

She sighed. "I was just hoping to put it off for a while."

"Why, because he failed his audition?" House leaned back in his chair. "He won't be bitter. It's not like he knew it was an audition at the time."

"I suppose," she said dubiously.

"Cuddy," he said, just enjoying the sound of her name.

"Are you coming over tonight?"

"Do you want me to?"

There was a long pause. He could almost see the way she was raising her eyes and biting her lip. "Yes."

"No problem," he said. "Saves on the heating bill."

She snorted. "You sentimental fool."

"I'm liking this us thing," he said, surprising himself. "I always knew you'd put out eventually."

"House," she said, and he couldn't place her tone.

"One day at a time," he said.

"Definitely," she said. "When's dinner?"

"We'll be down in twenty minutes."

Dinner was quietly awkward, but the food was good and the salsa was fiery, and that made up for it. Wilson worked his way through a plate of fajitas and almost choked on his beer when House and Cuddy exchanged a look and Cuddy took a deep breath and said, "I'm pregnant."

Once he had stopped sputtering, Wilson wiped his mouth. "And House is...?"

"Yes," said House, with a measured look. "Don't spread it around."

Wilson opened his mouth as if he were going to speak and then closed it again. "Well. I guess that explains the last few weeks. How far along are you?"

"A couple of months," said Cuddy. "I was waiting until past the twelve week mark to let anyone know, but House said you were going to figure it out."

"I'm not sure if I would have quite gotten there on my own," said Wilson. "Huh. Congratulations. Are you two...an item now?"

"We're taking it a day at a time," House cut in. "Wouldn't want to the sprog to think he's going to be born into a stable family situation." Cuddy glared at him.

"A single parent home can be a perfectly stable family situation," she started to argue, and House put his arm around her.

"Isn't the little woman just so cute when she's all riled up?" He batted his eyes at Wilson, who rolled his own eyes in tandem with Cuddy.

"I think I'll have another beer," said Wilson, shaking his head. "You weren't kidding about the surprises, apparently."

They went home together openly after that, leaving Wilson in the parking lot. "I was thinking," House said on the drive back to Cuddy's house, "that maybe if I hadn't spent the last five years wallowing in missing Stacy, I might have been a better doctor and a better employee. So I'm sorry about that." It was easier to say when she couldn't spend a lot of time looking at him, and he could watch the road ahead instead of looking at her. "I haven't been a good friend or a good colleague," he went on, "and I wanted to say thanks for putting up with me. I wish I'd gotten over it sooner."

She put her hand on his knee and squeezed gently. "I knew you'd get there. Your case solution rate helped. Even when you were a jerk, you were a good doctor, and it's not like you didn't have a decent excuse for wallowing in misery. Lucky for you, I know that there's some kind of decency hidden under all the arrogance."

"You do know me, Cuddy. You and Stacy and Wilson know me better than anyone, and you've known me longest." He paused. "I was also thinking that if I hadn't been thinking about Stacy for the last five years, I might have started thinking of you." He looked sideways at her. She said nothing for a while. He watched the road unspool in the autumn dark.

"Are you asking me to go steady?" she asked after a bit.

"I'm just trying to say that I'm glad this is happening," he said.

"I'm glad you're glad." She put on the turn signal and pulled the car into the driveway.

"We are too wise to woo peaceably," he said to no one in particular, undoing his seatbelt.

"Is that your philosopher Jagger again?"

"Shakespeare," he said. "Much Ado. You should see it, if you haven't. Watch the Kenneth Branaugh version. You get to watch Keanu Reeves make an ass of himself, plus Emma Thompson gets naked. What a babe."

"Aren't you supposed to be thinking about me getting naked instead?" she teased instead, getting out of the car.

"Time enough for that." He looked around the neighborhood as she unlocked the door, and then went in behind her, avoiding the shoes that she kicked off in the entry way. She went into the kitchen for a bottle of water, and he came up and put his arms around her as she drank. She set the bottle down and turned in his arms, pressing her cheek to his chest. He felt a sudden rush of possessive joy. He wanted to show her off. He wanted to protect her. No wonder people wrote books about parenthood, if this was how it began. In seven months, the rush would be unbelievable.

"Will you play the piano for me sometime?" she asked, muffled a little against his shirt.

"If you want. You'll have to come over, though. I'm not schlepping that thing all the way to your house for just one set." He stroked her hair. "Have you got a thing for musicians, Cuddy?"

"Why don't you find out?"

He made love to her very gently, and they lay in bed together afterwards with his hands flattened over her stomach. He thought about his expectations for his life and the way it had turned out instead. Here he was curled around Cuddy's now familiar body, his arms arranged just right around her small frame, instead of having Stacy's long bones draped over his. It was good. It was different. He could live with different. He could even love different. They were resourceful. They'd figure things out.

He kissed the back of her neck and she murmured in her sleep. "I love you," he said against her shoulder, just his lips moving without any sound, but it was a start.


	3. when the sunshine beckons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The situation was bizarre, but Wilson couldn't deny that it had improved the quality of his life considerably, the two of them being happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline: Farther along in Cuddy's hypothetical S3 pregnancy: four months.  
> A/N: Okay, so apparently this is a longer story than I thought it was. These things happen. Title shamelessly stolen from "She Is Love" by Oasis. And yes, it's a little mushier than Canon!HouseandCuddy, but it goes with the first two parts.   
> Disclaimer: _House M.D._ and all related characters are property of Heel and Toe Films, Shore Z Productions and Bad Hat Harry Productions in association with NBC Universal Television Studio. I make no money from writing this and no infringement is intended, just deep admiration and a need to fill in some blanks.

Cuddy began to round out noticeably and Wilson watched in envious fascination. She was even lovelier than before somehow, walking around the hospital with an aura of calm and her hand on the gentle swell of her belly. She and House were still together according to their particular idiom of intimacy, and Wilson wasn't sure what to make of it all.

"What are you going to tell people?" he asked House as they went through the line in the caf.

"It's none of people's business," said House, raking salad neatly over a steak, a trick he seemed to like.

"People will ask anyway," Wilson reminded him.

"People will ask Cuddy," House said. "Probably she'll tell them it was an anonymous donor. We're not all gossips like you."

"You haven't discussed this? What if she tells the truth?"

They found a table and sat down. House forked his salad aside and started cutting his steak. "Not like it would make me look bad," he said. "I scored the biggest babe in the hospital. It can only enhance my reputation as a stud. And she was just succumbing to my inevitable charms." He stole a fry from Wilson's plate and popped it into his mouth. "Anyway, as far as you know, it was an anonymous donation. Maybe I wear a mask to bed." He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Wilson shook his head in disbelief. "You're impossible."

"Jealous?

"Confused. How does she put up with an ass like you?"

"Did you ever get an answer to that question out of Stacy?"

Wilson ignored that. "Don't you fight?"

House rolled his eyes. "Of course we fight. She's pregnant, she didn't become some non-Cuddy pod person. But then we have makeup sex, and because she knows she's a stressed out woman with crazy hormones and she's overreacting to everything, I can get away with just about anything." He chewed with an air of smug thoughtfulness. "Besides, if we didn't fight, it wouldn't be any fun. I hope you don't need to see her this afternoon. I'm sensing we're going to have a little squabble before her board meeting."

"In her office?" Wilson's voice rose a little. "What made you think that was on the list of things I should know?"

"Oh, Jimmy, it's just one of the benefits of being my best friend. Now you'll never be able to pay attention in meetings. Are you eating those?" He reached out for another fry, but Wilson snatched the plate away.

"Cameron is so going to be pissy about this," he muttered.

"Distract her with your boyish charms," House suggested.

"I thought you were trying to fix her up with Chase."

"Yeah. For a guy with hair that good, he moves really slowly." House shuffled the trash onto his tray. "Well, I'm off to provoke the boss. I hear she had to spend the morning in NICU. Best to get all the crying out of her system before she's in a room with people who control our futures." He left, snatching one last fry, and Wilson sighed and ate the rest of his meal, shaking his head slowly. That explained why they both looked so relaxed, anyway. Cuddy's composure wasn't beatific, it was afterglow. He smiled despite himself. The situation was bizarre, but he couldn't deny that it had improved the quality of his life considerably, the two of them being happy. The timing was good too: they had gotten together around the time House's newfound-health-and-mobility endorphins should have been wearing off. House had been a lot more open and pleasant since he'd been able to walk without constant pain, and now with this Cuddy thing, he was almost affectionate. Cameron was going to be pissy, but that was for another day.

House was as reckless in his joy as he had been in his misery, which was either fortunate or unfortunate for the hospital, depending on the day and the patient. He was still entirely lacking in bedside manner, still with that genius for taking the right risk on a patient with no hope left. He still blew off his paperwork and made Cameron do it though it should have gone to Foreman, who had the least seniority. He was still an irritating jerk the greatest part of the time, trying to blow off his clinic duty, but he was enjoying himself, and that kept himself from destroying himself the way he had before. Wilson at least was glad for that. He ran into House on the way to his office. House gave him the thumbs up and ducked into the office without waiting to see Wilson's response.

"Good morning!" House said to his team, who looked less than enthusiastic. He reflected that he'd have to come up with a better nickname for them one of these days. They weren't responding well to being called the kids.

"It's afternoon," Chase pointed out.

"Time flies when you're having fun," said House. "What have you got for me?"

"Nothing," said Foreman. "Nothing out of the ordinary this week so far."

"Cuddy's pregnant," said Cameron.

"Have we gone from diagnostics to gossip? Excellent. Get me all the dirt you can find on the nursing staff."

"We just thought you might know something more about it," said Cameron meaningfully, as Chase and Foreman looked away to forcibly demonstrate that "we" in this case did not mean them.

"God, am I pregnant too? Wilson promised me he'd stop in time."

"She talks to you," Cameron insisted.

"Yeah, Cameron, she confides in me. Like, totally. And then we paint each other's toenails. She's my boss, not my stylist." He looked at the blank whiteboard. "Go hunt down something fun, or I'll send you all to the clinic for extra hours."

When they were gone, and only their frustrated disapproval lingered in the office, he sat down and watched soaps, rubbing his thigh absently. The pain was gone, except for a lingering ache now and again, but he still had a good supply of Vicodin now that he barely touched them. The detox had been a bitch, but he'd spent most of it doubling up on recovery from being shot anyway. Now he kept mints in an empty bottle, just because he was used to having something to toy with and something to put in his mouth. He squeezed his thigh experimentally. He was fascinated by the new strength of the muscle underneath the old puckering of the scars and the places where they'd removed the tissue entirely.

The phone rang and he debated not answering it, but it was a commercial break anyway.

"House."

"I hear my secret's out," said Cuddy.

"Hey, maybe if you hadn't gotten fat, it would still be a secret." He swiveled in his chair.

"I don't have anywhere else to put it," said Cuddy, fortunately sounding amused more than angry. "How's Cameron?"

"Pissy."

"Too bad," she said and she really didn't sound repentant at all.

"I think she suspects. She all but accused me of fatherhood. I blamed Wilson."

"Very smooth," she said. "You really are one of the least subtle people I know."

"How was the board meeting?"

"It went well. For once, they have no immediate reasons to fire you."

The soap was back on. He half-watched it, listening to Cuddy. "Someone's been keeping me up nights. I'm too tired to make trouble."

"Yes, it's all my fault that you're behaving like a normal person instead of a psychopath."

"Seriously," he said, "you're like a little heating unit these days. That's not a baby. It's a tiny furnace. And yet your feet are still cold. Women are a mystery."

"Go do your clinic hours," she said.

"Yes, mistress." He hung up but waited for the credits to roll over the melodramatic doctors before he turned the television off and loped down to the clinic to face down the usual setlist of minor complaints and idiotic self-cures. He dosed a couple of kids with sniffly noses and found himself wondering what his kid would look like when it finally arrived, but it was a minor distraction in the lineup of minor illnesses.

He popped his head into Cuddy's office after. "Lisa," he said, and she looked up with the starry eyes he saw more and more of lately.

"Hey," she said softly.

"I was thinking of going back to my place tonight," he said.

"Okay," she said without hesitation. "I have that appointment in the morning anyway." She smiled at him.

House had been looking forward to a night alone with his piano, but seeing her looking pleased just to see him changed his mind. "Want to come over?" he offered. "I'll play you all the low down dirty jazz you can handle."

"I thought I was a furnace." But she said the words lightly, with a little smile playing about her lips.

"I'll deal with it somehow. It is pretty wintery these days."

She started to say something and then winced and gripped the edge of the desk. He strode across the room to her and knelt by her chair. "What's wrong?" He tipped up her chin, checked her pupils with a practiced eye, touched his fingers to her throat for the pulse.

"Nothing's wrong," she said, and moved his hand from her throat to her belly, moving her shirttail. "I'm pretty sure the baby's moving." He pressed his palm against her skin.

"I can't feel it," he said. "You're sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine. Actually, this is great. Would you mind if I came over? It would help if you could drive me tomorrow morning, since it's going to be distracting to have this thing wiggling around in there."

"That's my kid you're talking about," he said softly. "I wasn't sure you wanted me at these appointments."

"Greg," she said, as if it were a foregone conclusion, "if I didn't think I wanted you to be involved in this whole process, I would have kicked you out of bed when you started saying you'd probably get possessive. Or, given that I know you're territorial, I would have never asked you in the first place. I'm not saying you should marry me and turn into some kind of homemaker. I just thought you might like to see the medical side of this and not just the biological side."

"When you put it that way, who could resist?" he said, and got up a little awkwardly. He kissed the top of her head. "Call me when you're done here." She tipped her face up and he kissed her again and left her with her paperwork.

In his office, he brooded with his ball, rubbing his chin over it. Cuddy was a better addiction than anything he'd tried before, he decided. She was safer than Stacy because she had better reasons for putting up with him. This half-relationship of theirs was bewildering all around: they took it for granted that three or four nights a week, one of them would be spending the night with the other, usually at her house. There weren't any hard feelings if someone went home alone. They made love, they kept house together and made food at all hours, they laughed together, they were having a kid together, but they still had ideas of separate lives or some kind of independence. She rolled her eyes when he watched The L Word and she didn't try to put air fresheners in his bathroom. He rubbed her feet while he watched his trash tv and he tried to remember to put the toilet seat down, but he didn't tell her loved her unless she was asleep, and she never said it to him either, except to comment on how perverse she had to be to love putting up with him.

It was a dangerous game by nature, sleeping with the boss, but when he was the main reason Cuddy might get fired and he was playing nice, they could both be safe. They were more discreet since they'd told Wilson about the pregnancy: they spent less time together in public areas, talked only in empty offices, kept businesslike manners generally in the office, and tried not to be seen goign home together. She was good at her job and he was good at his job and neither one of them wanted to leave Princeton-Plainsboro, but he would be fired if she was, and he wasn't sure he wanted to work under any other Dean if he was forced out on his own. This issue, of course, was something he'd considered long and hard up until the moment they had gone to bed together, and then not again for several weeks of startled distracted happiness.

He had mentioned it to her once and she had told him that whether they were sleeping together was none of anyone else's goddamned business, and she'd been fighting for him for years with no rewards, so why would the board find her abnormally biased now? He wasn't sure whether to hope that the kid looked like him or fear it. Three more months - Cuddy was in her fourth. He had expected to carry on with his blithe solitude, despite his interest in Cuddy's welfare and his time in her bed, but these days he was worrying for three. It troubled him and it brought him more satisfaction than anything had in a long time, outside of medicine. That troubled him too.

He put down the ball and rustled through his back logs of paperwork. That always frustrated him enough to forget whatever was on his mind, and by the time Cuddy called, he was swearing at his recalcitrant pen and his own bad habits. She let the phone ring only once and hung up before he could pick up, but he knew it was her. He stood up, stiff and cranky. It was going to rain, one of those awful winter storms full of sleet. His thigh ached. When he got home, he'd have a Vicodin and a drink and he'd play for Cuddy and reassure himself that nothing had changed that much, except that he wouldn't have to limp when he took her to bed, and he'd have someone to soap his back in the morning.

House rode his bike home, Cuddy coming along somewhere behind him, and got in before the storm had really hit. He threw a cover over his bike and rattled the key in the door, a little off balance against the ache of his leg. It was supposed to be bones that did that, not muscles, but he supposed the changing barometric pressure did something to the feeble veins threading through the injured tissue. There was still Vicodin in the pocket of his winter coat, and he threw one back with the familiar motion. Probably at this point he could have gotten by with 800 milligrams of ibuprofen, but he was used to the bitter dry shape of the Vicodin working down his throat and the gentle floating sensation that would follow as the whiskey moved through his system. He went to the kitchen and sloshed a couple of fingers into a tumbler.

When she knocked on the door, breathless and windblown with her coat buttoned awkwardly over her belly, he was playing the piano. She didn't have a key to his place, and he pretended not to be able to find the keys to hers. He unlocked the door and pulled her inside, against him, kissing her deeply as he unbuttoned her coat. He pushed it and her purse over her shoulders and hung it on the coat rack without letting her break the kiss.

"You've been drinking," she said when he let her go, her voice husky and breathless still.

"Not done yet. Come here. I want to play for you."

She followed him after toeing her shoes off. "When I said just now...I didn't mean you shouldn't or that I'm judging you." She sat down on the bench next to him and he looked down at her.

"I know."

"I mean, it's not really my call. You're a grown man and I'm not your keeper."

"My leg hurts. I had a Vicodin and some whiskey. If I thought you were trying to be my keeper, I wouldn't tell you these things. And now I'm going to play the piano for you." He put his fingers over the keys without any real plan, just started to play whatever came into his head, low and jangly and a little mournful, with some grace notes to even out the mood. The important thing was letting the music out of his body; all the words and the notes were starting to make his bones vibrate. Cuddy leaned against him. The sleet in her hair melted against his shoulder. He let all his worries out in the music, all his hopes. He played Stacy. He played the infarction. He took one hand off the keyboard and reached for the whiskey, but didn't stop playing, his eyes almost closed. He played Wilson and Cuddy and the baby, happier themes threading through it, and he played the discovery of the fertility drugs, and the shots, and he played the shooting and the pain, all the familiar jazz themes. He could hear Gershwin, "Someone to Watch Over Me", and Ellington playing "Summertime" for Lady Ella, and Miles Davis, but it was his own music built around theirs, and it took a long time for him to realize that the warmth against his shoulder was the damp of Cuddy's tears as he played falling in love with her, his head rolling lightly with the rhythm of his fingers.

"Greg," she said throatily, and his own eyes prickled with tears, for the first time in longer than he could remember. The Vicodin and the alcohol were working, stronger than he remembered, and the storm outside rattled the windows, and he had not expected this to be such a catharsis. "I had no idea," she said, and licked her lips, and he kissed her, almost incidentally, his forehead against hers for comfort and his fingers still moving over the piano.

"Have you had anything to eat?" she murmured, breathing against him, sniffling a little against her tears.

"No," he said. "Not since lunch."

"I'm going to go find some food for you, okay?" She put her hands against his cheeks, supporting his head as she moved hers away. His face felt cold. "Keep playing. I'll be back soon."

So he played The Grand Theme of Steve McQueen Rat About Town, and he played Cuddy finding her way around his kitchen and she provided the pot-clanking accompaniment, and he played figuring out a really tough case, and he played losing a patient, and he played unexpected intoxication, and he played his team with little squeaky notes for Cameron objecting and some smooth bass runs for Foreman and a perky theme for Chase with an unexpected note here and there, and then he played the warmth of bed after a long night, and then Cuddy was waving a bowl of stew under his nose. He stood reluctantly and hobbled over to the couch, stiff all over. She had found some bread and put it through the toaster, and he spooned down the stew hungrily, remembering his appetite.

"Don't expect this kind of service to be a routine thing," she said, easing down beside him. He looked at her gratefully.

"Thanks. Maybe you should be my keeper."

Her eyes softened and she smiled a little. "There's a thankless job."

"True enough," he said, and soaked an edge of the bread in the stew.

"The baby liked the music," she said. "It moved a lot." He reached over with the hand that didn't hold the spoon and put his palm against her stomach, and she lifted her sweater and repositioned his hand.

"Great," he said when nothing happened. "Kid hates me already." And then he felt it, the shifting movement under her skin and he turned to her with surprise in his eyes. "I'll be damned. We did this?"

"We did," she said. "Finish your food and we'll go to bed." He ate obediently as she moved around the apartment, pulling a toothbrush out of her purse and disappearing into his bathroom. When he finished, he left the bowl on the coffee table and found Cuddy already in bed, wearing one of his t-shirts. He brushed his teeth, leaning heavily against the counter, and pissed the whiskey away, feeling a deeper contentment than alcohol usually brought. He had seen pregnant women before, fetuses twitching on ultrasounds, but this was personal, and he was intrigued by it. He slid into bed against Cuddy, and she murmured sleepily.

In the morning it was still sleeting. He made them coffee, used his to wash down a Vicodin under her eyes. She shrugged.

"My professional opinion is that you should take it easy with those, but you know best."

"Habit," he said. "I should really start putting ibuprofen in these bottles."

"Maybe so," she said, looking at her coffee with longing. He had forgotten she was trying to stay off caffeine. She got a glass of water instead to wash down her vitamins, and he poured her coffee into his cup when she wasn't looking, and put bread in the toaster. She smeared hers with peanut butter and he offered her some ancient jam.

"You should take that to the lab," she said with distaste. "It's probably sentient."

He drove very carefully on the way to the clinic, unaccountably nervous about being held responsible for Cuddy's situation for the first time. They'd probably slap him on the back, all that new-dad crap, offer to let him hear the heartbeat as if he hadn't heard a hundred thousand heartbeats over his years in medicine. Or he could pace in the waiting room, again the echo of the countless fathers before him. No, he decided, he'd go into the room like the medical professional he was. He could take it. Cuddy looked at him with a smile twisted into the corners of her mouth, as if she knew what he was thinking.

The OB looked pleased to see Cuddy, ran her through the normal barrage of questions and tests, and praised her health and vigor as House sat on a stool in the corner of the room. "And you're House?" she asked, and he nodded, and she smiled, and that was that. He watched the ultrasound quietly, looking at the arms and legs and round alien head of the thing that would be his kid. He understood why people got astonished. Fetuses were more interesting than livers.

He was quiet all day at work, after dropping Cuddy discreetly by the entrance and then parking and coming in separately, or as discreetly as could be done considering he was driving her car. Wilson came in as he was watching the lunchtime soaps, frowning a little at the television.

"How was the thing this morning?" Wilson asked, perching on the edge of House's desk.

"Fine. Weird."

"Everybody healthy?"

"The as yet unnamed, unsexed House/Cuddy sprog is healthy as a tadpole," said House. "Cuddy/House sprog. Couse. Huddy. Whatever."

"Is it as amazing as they say?" Wilson asked in a low voice, and House looked at him in surprise.

"Jimmy, are you suffering from sprog envy?"

Wilson shrugged helplessly. "It just doesn't seem likely to be something I'll ever experience. I thought I'd ask you."

"It's pretty cool," admitted House. "But don't tell anyone. I'll lose my macho image."

"Who would I tell? Cuddy would eviscerate me."

"True." House stood and stretched. "Let's go get some lunch and talk about something manly. Did you catch those reruns of _The L Word_? I was right, wasn't I? It's better on mute."


	4. this head and these arms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He solved the cases and the patients disappeared from his life forever, except in the rare case where their significant other turned up and shot him. The pain in his leg had shortened his attention span, but that wasn't a constant concern anymore. He wanted a long project. He was tired of living somewhere outside the human race, looking in, even if it had been his choice in the first place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline: AU departing from late S2/early S3 where the ketamine worked permanently. Cuddy is seven months pregnant.   
> A/N: The title of this one is stolen from the song "Devastation" by Malcolm Middleton.   
> Disclaimer: _House M.D._ and all related characters are property of Heel and Toe Films, Shore Z Productions and Bad Hat Harry Productions in association with NBC Universal Television Studio. I make no money from writing this and no infringement is intended, just deep admiration and a need to fill in some blanks.

Cuddy had thought that by now she would be tired of being pregnant, but instead she was still fascinated by the way her belly had grown. Probably, she thought, the endorphins flooding her system helped: nature knew how to keep women happy even as their bodies grew unwieldy. She did miss running. Now she did water aerobics with a bunch of old women and other expectant mothers, but it wasn't the same. She missed her tailored suits, too, but House was so enamoured of her increasingly ample breasts that somehow that part of it evened out. She just found maternity clothing that was fairly well cut and went on showcasing her cleavage. Cuddy had switched to ballet flats because her feet were too swollen and achy for heels, and she had to pee all the time, but she was generally untroubled by these developments. It was only on evenings after stressful days that she went home and looked longingly into her closet at her slinky dresses and the stockings that went with the lingerie she couldn't wear before padding off to the kitchen for a pint of ice cream.

She and House were still taking things one day at a time, though now he generally came to her OB appointments, and once in a while would hold her hand during the ultrasound. They had decided not to find out the sex of the child, or Cuddy had, and House had shrugged and watched their child's internal gymnastics on the fuzzy little screen. He had one of the computer generated models of the fetus tacked onto his refrigerator; she had seen him stand in front of it for minutes at a time before reaching into the fridge for whatever he'd come for in the first place. They didn't talk about baby names, but he painted the nursery for her one weekend, the sage green that she liked.

They were spending fewer nights together. She found it difficult to get comfortable even with the entire bed to herself, but he would call before he went to sleep, just leaving the phone live on top of the piano as he played lullabies and sonatas for her. She missed the way he breathed when he was asleep, and the weight of his arm over her hip, but the baby fidgeted and she itched and her legs cramped and she kept House up, and it was better if only one of them was sleepless. On the weekends he would come over and put her in the bath, douse her in lotion, and cook some Gregory House version of a healthy dinner, which involved a lot of whole wheat pasta because there wasn't much else he could make. She suspected he stopped by McDonald's before he came over, because he'd never been a whole grains type of guy, but she appreciated the gesture. After dinner, he would rub her back and legs as she arched into his hands with those long fingers so limber from playing the piano. Sometimes they made love, finding ways to work around her new bulkiness, and it was so gentle and joyous that she cried and laughed at the same time, and he brushed her hair gently away from her face.

At the hospital, it was a busy time, and Cuddy alternated between periods of almost manic energy where she waddled around the halls making sure things happened, and periods of exhaustion where she hid in her office and did paperwork.

"Shouldn't you be thinking about taking some time off?" asked Wilson, looking worried. "Not to be rude, Cuddy, but you're about as big as a house, so to speak, and you spend half the day napping on your couch. Farm some things out. The hospital will be okay without you for a few weeks."

"Let her work," said House, sprawled on her couch as if he had nothing better to do. "If you kick her out, she'll just be miserable and nag everyone she can call."

"Can we stop talking as if I'm not here?" she snapped, feet propped on her desk as she read through the day's files, and House snorted.

"Then again," he said, "there are the mood swings."

"House," she said warningly.

"I'm on your side!" he protested, and Wilson laughed under his breath, and then Cuddy was laughing too.

"See?" said House. "Mood swings!" But she couldn't seem to hold it against him.

"It isn't as if we don't have an obstetrics department," she pointed out. "I mean, if it came down to that."

"We have other departments?" House pulled a face of great amazement. "You've been seeing other doctors besides me and the Boy Wonder Oncologist here?"

"Don't you have any work to do?" she asked.

"Cameron keeps my schedule," he said automatically. "Check with her."

"Yeah, she's thrilled with me."

"You did steal her man," Wilson said, hands on his hips. "Isn't that against the code of the sisterhood?"

"If the two of you don't get out of my office, I swear to God, I'll fire both of you," Cuddy said, and buried her face in the file. Her stomach made a convenient resting place for the manila folders these days. House swung his legs off her couch.

"Too bad Chase won't make up his damn mind about going after Cameron. Get her off all our backs and onto hers." A sudden gleam came into his eyes. "This will take some delicate plotting. Wilson, to the batcave!"

Wilson rolled his eyes and followed House out of Cuddy's office, hearing her sigh as the door swung shut behind them.

"I will never understand how she puts up with you," he said to House as they walked toward the elevators.

"Ah, but you see, Jimmy, I'm extraordinarily good in bed."

Wilson winced. "Do we need to have another conversation about inappropriate conversation topics? Which category would most certainly include any mention of you and my immediate boss doing anything involving nudity?"

"Who said anything about nudity? That would be entirely indiscreet in a work setting."

"House!"

"I will never understand why you insist on trying to keep me from being on time to the clinic," House said loudly as they reached the nurses' station. She smiled skeptically.

"Exam room three," she said, and there was a wicked glint in her eyes. "It's an oozer."

House shot her a glance of somewhat diluted hatred and moved toward the exam room, wishing under his breath for something exotic to show up soon, cholera or Ebola or hell, some rare strain of the flu would do. Anything that required a lot of brain power. He was tired of clinic patients, who all suffered from the same underlying disease of idiocy, except the ones who were unintentionally terminal by the time they came in. All he spent his time thinking about these days was Cuddy and the baby and that was a dangerous path. They'd never talked over the terms of the parenthood, whether he'd be changing diapers and splitting the cost of college. He had been curious to see how the pregnancy would go, what the kid would look like. He was prepared to shoulder his share of the hospital's attention when the paternity of the sprog was revealed. And yes, he owed it to Cuddy to be there for her through at least some of the kid's development, give her some sort of monetary support, if nothing else. But the longer he was with her, the more he wanted to stay with her. The first couple of weeks, when they'd been trying to conceive, had set a precedent of intimacy that he didn't want to surrender, and the months after it had only deepened it. He loved Cuddy, and he loved seeing this transformation she was going through, this joint project of theirs that waved at them from a blurry screen and kicked him in the middle of the night. It was moving in a way he didn't want to admit.

But what about when the kid arrived? There would be squalling. There would be cuddling to be done. The kid needed a good chance at growing up not quite as twisted as its parents, and that meant he needed to figure out how one went about caring for an utterly helpless individual. As Cuddy would cheerfully point out, he had never been the most rational or responsible of people. Moving in the abstract was well and good, but it didn't make up for the reality of parenting a newborn: the crying, the feeding, the utter inability of the thing to communicate its basic needs aside from screaming and filling its diapers. House could barely communicate with fully functional adults most of the time.

Somehow he wanted it to work out anyway, wanted put his diagnostic skills toward something that would last longer than a few weeks. Maybe figuring out the particular tone of a scream that meant a certain thing would be more rewarding than matching symptoms to nuanced diseases.

He realized the patient was looking at him expectantly and that he had no idea what she'd been saying for the last few minutes.

"When did you say this all started?" he asked, pretending to make notes in her file.

His oozer turned out to have a bad allergy to mangos that made her lips crack and leak and scab. He wrote her a prescription for antihistimines and sent her away, then ran through a cold, a couple of minor STDs, a case of adult onset chicken pox, and an infected puncture wound that required a tetanus shot and some antibiotics. He brooded through the rest of the day, untangled a college student's bad reaction to mixing and matching acne medications with his team, and thought some more about how temporary it all was. He solved the cases and the patients disappeared from his life forever, except in the rare case where their significant other turned up and shot him. The pain in his leg had shortened his attention span, but that wasn't a constant concern anymore. He wanted a long project. He wanted to stay with Cuddy. He was tired of living somewhere outside the human race, looking in, even if it had been his choice in the first place.

"Maybe we should go to Lamaze classes," he said that night in the bath, over at Cuddy's on a rare week night. She leaned back against his chest, suds lapping at the sides of her belly, which rose above the water like an island.

"Why?"

"It's a thing people do," he said. "I don't know."

"I was thinking about a C-section. No Lamaze, no epidurals, faster turnaround, no danger of vaginal tearing."

He winced. "Can we never use that phrase again?"

"Wimp."

They drifted in the warm water, her fingers drawing idle circles in his knee.

"I just don't know how much you want me involved here," he said.

"Greg," she said gently, "you don't exactly fit the stereotype of the pacing father in the waiting room."

"You've never seen me at the top of my pacing form. I can pace with the champions."

"Look, I know you love your life the way it is. I know you love your independence. I'm not going to make you give that up."

"I love you," he said after a pause.

"That doesn't mean you can give up the things you've always valued."

He let out a long breath. It was strange to talk to the top of her head and feel the sweet rumble of her voice through the bones of her ribs. "Lisa, I just made my biggest emotional declaration of the last six years."

"Greg," she said, and her voice was tender, "I'm not quite as heavy a sleeper as you think I am."

"Oh."

She tipped her head back onto his shoulder, talking to his chin and the slope of his cheek. "You were right when you said we're too set in our ways to woo peaceably, or whatever it was. This is a good thing we have and God knows I love you more than I should, but I can't take the risk of trying to set up house with you and then you getting restless. I want this baby to have a stable environment to grow up in. It's fine if we split our lives between two houses, because we know to respect each other's space, but a child doesn't have a sense of that."

"What makes you think I'd cut and run?"

"I saw you push Stacy away twice," she said. "I don't want that to happen to me and my child."

"So you're pushing first?" He sat up a little and her shoulders shifted against his chest.

"I can't ask you to change."

"I have changed," he said, low and fierce. "Look at me. Whether I wanted to or not, I've changed. Since Stacy left, since my leg healed, since this thing with you...nothing is the same. I'm trying to figure out how I can be a father. It's not just your kid, Cuddy, it's OUR kid. If you didn't want that to be true, you shouldn't have let me stay. You shouldn't have let me come to the OB appointments. You shouldn't have let me wash your hair and you shouldn't have let me feel the kid kicking. Yeah, the followthrough on this particular case is a little bit more difficult to work out, but I'm trying. Talk to me."

"You want to be around? To stay around?" she asked in a thin little voice, and he wished there were enough space in the tub to turn her face to face with him.

"I do, but," he paused. For some reason this was harder to say than telling her he loved her. "I need help. I need you to talk me through it. I need me to tell you when I'm being an idiot, and maybe sometimes I need to go into a dark room with a piano and not come out for a couple of hours."

"Say it again."

"This is hard enough."

"Say it."

He fought her order briefly, biting the inside of his lip. "I need help. I need you to help me."

"Greg." She struggled, slippery in his arms, and wound up on her knees facing him. Her eyes were bright. He admired the gleaming curves of her breasts and stomach in the low light of the bathroom, the candles flickering on the counter. "I was never going to ask you for this kind of committment."

"I know," he said. "You're too goddamned stubborn for your own good. Little Miss Does Everything, Queen of the Workaday World. Mothering the whole hospital in addition to producing the perfect child."

"And you are the most intense, narcissistic, irritating, ridiculously complicated person I've ever known." He thought she had tears in her eyes. "It's kind of intimidating to live under your microscope. All that patented House focus just boring holes through me, some days." He shifted uncomfortably, knocking his shoulderblades on the tile behind him. She put one wet hand in the center of his chest. "And yet I don't remember ever being this happy."

"That's the hormones," he said. She snorted. "This could make problems at work, if we make this real. Officially," he amended.

"If anyone gives me shit, I'll just put Foreman in charge of the department again," she said and he smiled. Some things would never change. His chest ached with deep sense of relief and comfort and he was suddenly inexpressibly tired.

"We should buy a new house," she said. "Somewhere to start over on learning to live with each other. Neutral territory, with a room for your piano. Spare bedroom in case we feel like sleeping apart."

"Stubborn and overly practical," he said. "I already painted the nursery."

"It was good practice," she said. "Greg, if we're going to make this work, let's make it work. We're adults; these are reasonable allowances. You and I have extremely stressful jobs and we value our personal space. We don't have to have a traditional relationship. It probably won't be easy no matter how many conditions we set."

"You trusted me," he said, reaching an arm out around her waist. "You trusted me with maybe the most important secret of your life. I trust you. One roof. No waiting. I'll even talk to City Hall, if that's what you decide. As long as the piano can live with us, and my couch. Also, my bed is nicer than yours."

'If that's what you need."

"I need you," he said and slid awkwardly against the porcelain, bracing himself so he could kiss her.

"It took you long enough to say it," she murmured against his lips, and he kissed his way across her cheek and down her neck, letting his stubble scrape against the soft place where her pulse was, the ridge of her collarbone still so prominent despite the weight she'd gained. He ran a hand over her breasts, feeling the ache in his hamstrings from the strange way he was sitting, and followed fingers with lips, his other hand tracing patterns on her thighs under the slosh of the sudsy water.

"House," she moaned, and he let his fingers wander closer to the cleft of her legs. She rose a little higher on her knees, the bathmat crackling under her.

"Just looking for a little mutuality," he whispered against the underside of her breast. "Admit it. You need me too."

"I would have admitted it any time you'd asked," she panted, rocking against his hand. "Professionally. I needed you. The hospital needed you."

"Personally," he demanded, and dropped his head further to kiss the hard swell of her stomach.

"I need you," she moaned, as his hand slid against her under the waterline. "God, I wanted to kill Stacy when she was playing those games with you."

"It's a dizzy world in which you're the sanest thing to ever happen to me, little witch." He nuzzled her cleavage to make her whimper. "But thank you for loving me that much."

"I saved you," she said. "You're mine." He felt oddly touched by the arrogance of her declaration, her absolute certainty of her claim over him. She eased backwards, settling into the water until she could kiss him, holding his face between her hands. She could feel the pulse in his lips. She slid one hand around the back of his head, letting the other trail down his back until it reached his hip and she traced the line of the muscle down into his groin, reaching for his erection, warmer than the water around it.

"Let's go to bed," he said against her throat. "Give the sprog a few good chances to kick me in the face."

It was awkward trying to get out of the tub, especially as they tried to keep as much skin contact as possible, and they didn't bother with toweling off or draining the tub. She licked droplets of water off the inside of his knee and he kissed the base of her spine and neither of them minded that the covers were damp. They shifted at a half word here and a muffled plea there, finding mutually acceptable configurations, making space for each other and taking pleasure in the other's delight. The confessions had loosened a lot of knots too accustomed to be noticed, and the kisses and moans were tinged with an extra sweetness. The prickle of desire through their bodies reached their eyes and both of them cried a little, pretending it was leftover bathwater but no real secrets between them. Cuddy shifted heavily onto her left side and pulled his arm over her; House curled around her and kissed the nape of her neck with exhausted solicitude, her hair catching in his stubble.

As he fell asleep, he thought that nothing had ever been worth so much effort as this.


	5. for me to be saved and you to be brave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Afterwards, House wasn't quite sure what had happened. There was some movement of the knife, some gesture of the hands, and then they put a baby in his arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline: Au. Late May 2007, based on the fact that House was shot in May 2006 and the speculation that Cuddy got pregnant at the end of August.  
> A/N: Title for this part from Rilo Kiley's "More Adventurous"; title for the story as a whole from Colin Meloy's "Baby Song". Again with the warning that if you don't like House being romantic, you'll probably find this unpalatably OOC. Also, I've never had a baby or been pregnant, so if anything's wrong, I apologize (and I know the c-section goes really fast here). (The Hindi, for anyone who cares, is supposed to say "Of course, madame. You're crazy and you're very beautiful", but my Hindi is very rudimentary, so it might be conjugated incorrectly.)  
> Disclaimer: _House M.D._ and all related characters are property of Heel and Toe Films, Shore Z Productions and Bad Hat Harry Productions in association with NBC Universal Television Studio. I make no money from writing this and no infringement is intended, just deep admiration and a need to fill in some blanks.

It was definitely spring. The trees were blossoming on the Princeton campus and the clinic had seen a huge increase in allergy sufferers. The air was warm enough that Cuddy had insisted that House leave some of the windows open so that their new place could air out, but now it was evening and cooling off, and he went around closing them all again.

"Shift," he said, coming up behind the couch and sliding over the arm so that she had to scoot down or risk being sat upon. She had her feet up on the other armrest, and now her head was wedged against his thigh. "That's about enough slavery for one day. I've schlepped about half of Jersey from one room to the other while you were lying here doing nothing. I'd forgotten how much I hate moving."

"You just don't like other people touching your things, which is why you haven't finished unpacking even though technically we moved in two weeks ago," she said, putting her head in his lap. "And I'm not doing nothing. Gestation is hard work. I don't get to put down what I'm schlepping for another couple of weeks."

"True enough."

"It is a good house, though."

"As long as I've got the couch and the piano," he said, patting the leather of the armrest. "And the bed. And you, I guess."

"God, what a romantic," she said, and he let his fingers slide over her cheekbone. "Ow." She winced and pressed a hand to her stomach.

"Do I have to give the sprog a lecture on how it's not nice to kick people again?"

"Distract me," she said. "How many languages do you speak?"

"Bits and pieces of this and that." He twisted his fingers gently through her hair.

"You know Spanish," she prompted. "I heard from Wilson that you know a little Mandarin, which, by the way, is a funny story about you actually doing your work, and why do I always have to hear about your antics from someone else?"

"Makes me look better if my glory comes through the grapevine," he said. "If I tell you, it's narcissicism. If Wilson tells you, it's sheer admiration. Trade secrets of the egomaniac."

"You are basically the world authority." She yawned. "Is it true you learned Hindi so you could get your revenge on that migraine idiot?"

"Maybe. Learned to read it more than speak it."

"Humor me. Say something."

He paused. "Zaroor, mem sahib. Tum deewani ho, aur bahut khubsurati."

"What did you say?"

"I have no idea."

"Oh." She put one hand on her stomach. The baby was still hiccupping. "Sounded pretty hot. All throaty. I bet your pronounciation's terrible."

"Yeah, but I make up for it in other ways." He picked up the hand that wasn't on her belly and kissed her palm, brushing his lips over the creases of her skin until her breath got ragged. "Is that enough of a distraction?"

"Where did you learn all of this?"

"Hindi or kissing?"

"All of it." His grin was crooked as she watched him upside down.

"That's a long story."

"I've got time," she said.

"It all started one chilly December morning in the late 1950s," he began, and she listened to him spin wild and probably untrue stories about his childhood mischiefs until she fell asleep, their child still shifting in her belly.

She was restless for the next few weeks, and so was he, as the due date eased closer. She'd talked through it with her OB and decided a C-section was the way to go, given her narrow hips and the hefty size of the child, and House went along with it without much griping after she used the phrase "vaginal tearing" a few more times and asked if he really wanted to see her screaming in the delivery room.

"Not like that," he said in that low sexy voice, sitting on the corner of her desk, and she rolled her eyes and feigned disinterest. "Cuddy." He caught at her hand. "This is a major surgery. You're sure a little ripping is worth the risk?"

"House, I oversaw the hiring of our entire obstetrics department. My OB trusts them. I trust them. They're good surgeons. It's a routine procedure for them, and we're doing the lower uterine instead of the classical section, which means there's much less risk involved. The women in my family have a history of extraordinarily difficult births and we think that this is safer for me. It may take me a couple of weeks to recover fully, but that just means that you get to let your inner control freak run rampant and bring me all kinds of soup from the deli." She squeezed his fingers comfortingly. "Our surgeons saw you through your major surgeries."

"Exactly why I'm concerned," he grumbled. "Have you seen my scars?"

"We'll match," she said and he looked down at her desk with that smile that showed his dimples. "Go away," she said. "Go do your work. In a couple of days, we're going to have a baby. A very big baby."

"That's pretty much going to blow our cover as far as this whole relationship thing goes," he said, "because I'm definitely going to be in that OR."

"You're going to make my surgeons nervous."

"They're going to do the best damn job of their lives," he said grimly.

"I watched your surgeries," she said suddenly. "All of them. The infarction, the muscle removal, the bullets. Scariest hours of my life." She pushed her cheek into the heel of the hand he wasn't holding, elbow braced on the desk and her fingers against her hairline.

"I thought you held Stacy's hand through the first one," he murmured, flexing the muscle of his thigh a little, remembering the agony. The bullet had been better; he'd gone into shock, at least.

Cuddy shook her head. "I left her in the waiting room. I had to be there with you. It was my fault you were there."

"It was nobody's fault," he said. "Except that idiot who wouldn't listen to me in the first place. You listened." He paused. "I can't help wishing I could make you go home and rest."

"Greg, we're in a hospital. Nothing's going to happen. If I were at home, how would you check up on me every half hour?"

He looked thoughtful. "What kind of paternity leave policy do we have?"

"Why don't you go to your office and look it up? Remember? We gave you an office, name on the door and everything?" She looked pointedly at the door. "Go. I've got work to do and so do you."

"Taskmaster," he grumbled, and paused at the door. "The other thing - when we declare this to the world, the lawyers are going to be mad. Just guessing. I don't have a lot of experience with lawyers being mad."

"They'll deal with it," she said. "This hospital doesn't have a fraternization clause, and I'm still going to fight you just as hard when I think you're wrong. When it comes to the question of your dubious genius or this hospital, the hospital has to come first. Just be glad it isn't Stacy anymore."

"You have no idea how glad I am of that," he said.

"She's going to find out."

"I know," he said. "I was going to make Wilson call her later. But she can't stand over my shoulder all professionally anymore. I'm one up in the game of moving on - she got married, but I knocked somebody up."

"You're not married, though," she pointed out. "I think that puts you equal in the ranks."

"I could be," he said softly, and she looked up from her file.

"Go to work," she told him, but her eyes were shining. "We'll talk about that later. Maybe."

House whistled all the way back to Wilson's office and sprawled in the chair in front of Wilson's desk. "Tell me everything you know about getting married."

Wilson looked skyward and put his pen down on top of the file he'd been going through. "What now? Is Cuddy asking for a ring?"

"Nope. All my idea." He kicked at Wilson's desk. "Though I appreciate that you think I'd only get married if I had to and not because I wanted to."

"You've never seemed the marrying type," Wilson said. "You didn't even propose to Stacy, and the two of you were together for five years. Until Cuddy, she was the love of your life."

"I find that as I age, I get more and more into exclusive rights over my women," House said. "Also, I don't want anyone calling my kid a bastard unless they've got a good reason. You have to earn this kind of notariety on your own." He leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. "Just tell me if it's going to be a total disaster."

"What, because I'm the expert on disastrous marriages? Thanks." Wilson got up and paced a little. "By the way, I didn't mean that I thought Cuddy would be the only one to want to make it permanent. She's just more into propriety than you are."

"She doesn't give a damn about propriety except as it could harm the hospital for her to look more partial to me than normal," House said. "All I have to do is continue being brilliant."

"Or she could make Foreman head of your department again," Wilson said thoughtful.

"See, why does everyone think that's funny?" House frowned.

Wilson stopped pacing and spread his hands on his desk. "You're serious about this marriage thing?"

House shrugged. "I'm game if she's game. We bought a house a couple of weeks ago. By the way, guess who gets to call Stacy?"

"Oh, no," Wilson said. "No, no, no. This is your baby, Greg. She's your ex. You call her."

"I don't have her number," House pointed out.

"Fortunately, due to the miracle of modern technology and organization, I have a phone and my Rolodex right here." Wilson gestured broadly, and flipped through the little address cards until he found Stacy's. He dialed, picked up the receiver, and held it out to House.

House jerked his chin at the phone. "Put it on speaker." Wilson looked worried but pressed the button and set the receiver down.

"Stacy Warner," came the cool voice from the phone.

"Stacy!" said House, standing and leaning over the desk. "My leg's healed, so everything's square between us. By the way, I'm going to be a dad in the next couple of days and I'm thinking seriously about getting married."

"Greg? What's going on?"

"Can Mark walk yet? You've got an impressive track record of crippling the significant men in your life. Two for two. Good thing I had an insane cure and a doctor who knows me well enough to implement it. I think I ran ten miles yesterday."

"Why did you call me?" Her voice vibrated with anger. Wilson looked up at House, who sighed.

"I thought you should know," he said quietly. "In case things didn't work out with Mark. I'm finally over you."

"All hostility aside, of course."

"Stacy," he said, remembering how she had always stilled at that tone in his voice.

"You're having a baby?" Now her voice was trembling.

"With Lisa. Cuddy."

"Well," she said. "This is a surprise." There was a long pause. "Is James there?"

"Hey, Stacy."

"You're not going to let him go too crazy?" she asked. House knew she was touching the crucifix at her throat, pushing her hand underneath the hair at the back of her neck. But it wasn't painful anymore so think of her doing these things, just a kind of vague regret that at one point, he had loved her and it hadn't worked.

He leaned in as Wilson failed to formulate a response. "Steve McQueen sends his regards. Uh oh. Gotta go. A patient just ran by on fire." He pressed the disconnect button and let his head hang heavy for a brief moment.

"Got that off your chest?" Wilson murmured.

"Close enough." House slapped his palms on the desk and stood up. "Well, time to go torture my team. Day after tomorrow is Labor Day. I'm hosting poker in my office. The kids will never know what they walked into."

"Don't we have to work?"

"Call in sick. They'll never trace you to the third floor. Anyway, it should be over pretty fast. I just need something to distract me while Cuddy's in pre-op. I'm forbidden to piss off the obstetrics team until they're actually in surgery. After that, we'll just be celebrating." He started to walk away. "Bring chips."

"It's weird that you still call each other by your last names," Wilson shouted after him.

"Hot, though, right?" House shouted back, and slipped into his office next door.

His team was sitting around the table looking cranky. Foreman was glowering at Chase and Cameron, who were sitting on the same side of the table not looking at each other.

"Uh oh," said House. "Foreman, Chase been playing with your toys again?"

"Just because they're sleeping together doesn't mean they should drop all professionalism," burst out Foreman. "This case we've got could be any number of things, but they're insisting that it's vasculitis."

"It is vasculitis!" said Cameron. "And whether or not Chase and I are sleeping together has no effect on our medical opinions. We just happen to agree in this case!"

"It could be Addison's!" Foreman said. "The discolouration of the skin is more consistent with Addison's than with vasculitis."

"Here's a thought," said House, going to pour himself some coffee. Somehow when you were off most other drugs, caffeine seemed like a godsend. "I know we don't usually do this, but have you tried running any tests on the guy?"

Foreman pointed at his fellow Fellows. "They refused to do anything until you got here. Said it was all unnecessary."

"Chase, Cameron, Foreman: grow up. The differential is just an excuse for doing as many tests as you can. If you haven't learned that by now, you'll never be diagnosticians." He stirred his coffee, leaning against the counter. "Well? Knock yourselves out. Test for both. If you can't tell, it's clearly in the early stages. Bloodwork, MRI, get a chest x-ray, and do an ACTH stimulation. And when all those come back negative, we'll figure out what's really wrong with him. Scoot." He waved them off with his coffee stirrer, and Cameron gave him a look of deep disdain. Foreman stomped out.

"Chase," said House, and Chase stopped in the doorway. "The whole point of you going out with Cameron was so that you would keep her satisfied and get her off our backs. Can't you give her a little pick me up in the parking garage or something?"

Chase looked back with the expression of a man who hasn't gotten a lot of sleep for a few weeks. "You have no idea," he said, and House's eyebrows went up. Chase pushed off the doorframe with his hand and went off to find his disgruntled colleagues.

After an afternoon of bickering and a couple of manila envelopes of lab results, vaculitis or Addison's turned out to be hepatitis.

"I'm really thinking they're just giving us whatever they don't feel like dealing with these days," House griped. "Anyway. Don't forget to go to the ATM tomorrow night. We're playing poker on Thursday."

"What? Why?" asked Cameron, shooting puzzled looks at Chase and Foreman.

"Labor Day!" said House, erasing the board.

"It's May," said Chase. "Labor Day isn't until September."

"See how it's the British guy who knows that? You two dropped the ball," House said to Foreman and Cameron. "Regardless, we're playing poker on Thursday."

"Because of Cuddy?" asked Foreman, ducking his head and putting his hands in his pockets. "Cuddy's labor, right?"

"What could we wish to celebrate more than the return of our Dean's svelte figure?" asked House. "Bring money. And pretzels. Don't worry, I'll remind you again tomorrow."

"You and Cuddy? I knew it!" said Cameron, but Chase put his arm around her and guided her to the door. Foreman just nodded. "Good work, boss," he said, and left his lab coat over the back of his chair.

"I told my team today," he said to Cuddy later as he puzzled out how to lay lasagna noodles in the pan. It turned out he had been right: cooking was for chumps and people with weird allergies who couldn't eat in restaurants. Unfortunately, Cuddy had a craving and it had to be homemade. He thought she just wanted to see him in the kitchen from her vantage point on the couch. "I told Stacy too," he called out.

"Good," she said. "All by yourself, or did you make Wilson do it?"

"He pushed the buttons. I did the talking."

"I'm proud of you," she said, sounding as if she weren't really listening.

"She asked me to run away with her," he adlibbed, dumping sauce and meat in the pan. "Said she'd wear the really small bikini."

"I hope she remembers to bring sunscreen, wherever you're going that's got bikini weather in April. She's pretty fair. She'd probably burn."

"Isn't there anything I can do to make you jealous?" He dropped some more noodles in, carelessly, and shook cheese over the pan.

"Unfortunately for you," she said, "I'm well aware that no one else would want you."

"Wilson would take me back," he said, and maneuvered the pan into the oven.

"Wilson knows better," she said, and he went and kissed her on the forehead. In the corner of the living room, Steve McQueen ran on his wheel.

"He wouldn't tell me if he thought we'd be able to make a decent effort of being married," House said, and Cuddy hummed.

"He's a cautious man," she said.

"He did say you were all hung up on propriety."

"Symptom of being an administrator in a hospital where the best doctor is basically a mad scientist." She moved her hands over her belly.

"Meanwhile, I'm all hung up on you." He wrapped one of her curls around his finger.

"I won't change my name," she said.

"You don't have any weird objections to making it legal?"

"We bought a house together, Greg. We're having a kid together. It's not as if I'm not taking this seriously. The conveniences of legality would probably outweigh the conveniences of not making it legal, given that this house is big enough for us to get away from each other for a while if we have to."

"God, Lisa, you're such a romantic," he murmured, a little hurt, and she tipped her head and gave him one of those brilliant smiles that he saw so rarely.

"My mother will be thrilled," she said, "and so will yours. But I'm saying I'm willing to spend the rest of my life with you even if I don't have a piece of paper reminding me."

He swallowed hard against the warmth swelling in his chest. "That's the hormones talking, right?"

She rubbed the crown of her head against his thigh. "Where's my lasagna?"

"Has to stay in the oven for another hour, Miss Impatience. Sit up. I'll rub your back." He let his fingers play over her shoulders, seeking out the tense muscles. Her shoulders were firm under his hands and he thought again how much he liked her body, more than any body he'd ever seen. "Nervous about the kid?"

"Less than I thought I would be." She sighed. "I'm tired. I think I've read everything ever written about pregnancy and delivering and c-sections. I have to pee basically every half hour. You have to sleep on the couch for either of us to get any rest. I'm just ready to be done, but all I can do now is wait. Been waiting too long to meet this kid. Oooh, there."

He rolled his thumbs over the knot and she made a happy sound that was almost a purr. "I spent a couple of hours reading up too," he said. "Sounds like childbirth is painful and sticky, whatever route you go. And after that, it's all downhill until they graduate from college and you can kick them out of the house."

She laughed, and braced herself against the child kicking. "We should think of names. I kind of like Caleb for a boy. Caleb Cuddy has a nice ring to it. Even Caleb Cuddy-House."

"It's kind of strange trying to name someone you've never even seen outside of a womb," he said.

"True, but the birth certificate has to say something."

"How about 'Apoplexy' for a girl? Lexy for short." She elbowed him in the leg. "Just kidding. Whatever you want is fine. Give her a good Irish name for your Irish heritage. Colleen or Eileen or Bridget. Moira. Dana. Stop me when you like something."

"Dana." She rolled it around in her mouth. "Dana's good."

"Glad I could help. Now I need your help on a differential."

"Mmm," she said absently. "Symptoms?"

"Turn around and see."

"Greg!" She moved awkwardly, shifting until she faced him. "Are you sick and you didn't tell me? What if you're contagious?"

"I'm definitely contagious," he said, "but it's nothing that could hurt you or the baby."

She looked at him suspiciously. "What are you doing?"

"I have a little problem, just around here." He circled his lips with one finger. "It necessitates a rapid and prolonged application of heat and pressure. Delicate area, though. Requires an expert touch."

"Doctor House, are you writing your own prescriptions again?" she asked, but she was smiling.

"How long has it been since we made out like crazed adolescents?" he whispered, leaning toward her, letting his mouth brush against the corner of hers.

"Too long," she said, and moved against him as much as her belly would allow. The lasagna came out a little burned on top, but neither of them cared.

Wednesday was a blur. House barely concentrated on his clinic duty, to no one's surprise. He checked Cuddy's hospital bag five different times to make sure she had the clothes she wanted and the toothpaste she liked. Before he knew it, it was Wednesday night, and Cuddy coaxed him into bed because neither of them were going to sleep much anyway. They lay awake together, her on her left side and him curled around her back. He kissed behind her ear, their hands laced over her stomach.

"We're going to be parents tomorrow," she said.

"Blows my mind," he said. "As brain-warping goes, this fatherhood thing is better than drugs."

"You're going to be a good father," she said.

"All evidence to the contrary. I forgot to go get the application for a marriage license again. And I don't like fluffy bunnies."

"No hurry," she said, "we know what we want. And look at you. You care so much about things, and you've fixed your life up so much. I haven't seen you take a really stupid risk on yourself since before you got shot. You're going to put all that passion into being a dad and the kid is going to grow up just fine. I'll take loyalty, intelligence, and true love over fluffy bunnies any day."

"I just figured you were going to be a hell of a mom," he said against the rim of her ear, "and if I was screwing up, you'd let me know."

"Oooh," she moaned softly, tensing.

"Usually it takes more than that to get you to make that sound," he said, raising up on one elbow and pressing his palm to her abdomen. "Contraction?"

"I'm not sure," she said, eyes wide. "Oof."

"I'll start timing," he said.

"Greg, relax." She pulled him back down. "It's going to be a long time before anything really happens, even if it was a contraction, but I think the baby just kicked the wrong thing. We'll go in at the usual time." He lay down behind her again and stroked her belly, grazing her breasts with the edge of his thumb.

"How long do you get to keep these for?"

"Unbelievable," she said, but he knew she was smiling.

They managed to sleep a little. When they went into the hospital, the contractions still weren't regular, or at least weren't strong enough to matter, but the OB looked her up and down and admitted her. "Out," she said to House. "I'll page you when you need to scrub up. I know you want to be around, but frankly, you make everyone crazy. Go do whatever it is you do."

"She wants the curtain down," said House. "Don't fold once they give you the spinal," he reminded Cuddy.

"That's why I want you there," she said. "Guide me through the wonderful world of drug-induced stupors." She grinned at him and squeezed his hand. "I just wish I could get in on this poker action."

"Another time. We'll play a private little game. Strip poker."

The OB almost pushed him out into the hall, but he could hear Cuddy laughing, and that was a relief. He sauntered up to his office and found Wilson pouring chips into a big bowl.

"Getting fancy there, Jimmy. Good idea, though. Best to have the comfort food easily reachable when I start kicking your ass."

"Need I remind you that I won the poker tournament at the charity dinner? I've got moves you don't know about."

"I doubt that." House looked around the office. "Any idea where my team is?"

"For some reason, they didn't believe you about the poker," Wilson said. "I sent them to the ATM and for pretzels. You've lost all control over them since you stopped carrying that cane."

"I could just start administering spankings," House said. "Think that's a good idea? Don't consider it too long, though. Chase finally made his move. He'll probably sic a croc on you if you start tempting his girlfriend with a little erotic punishment."

Wilson flushed a little. "You really do think you're God, don't you?"

"God is everywhere," House intoned, rooting through his desk drawer. "And verily, I shall minister to ye of little faith with a good cigar." He held out the box he'd pulled from his desk. "Voila. Cuba's finest."

"We can't smoke these," said Wilson, looking at the cigars longingly. "We're in a hospital."

"I don't see patients in here and none of my team have allergies to smoke, as far as I can tell. How many times do you think we're going to get to celebrate the birth of my kid?"

Wilson tilted his head. "Well, once a year for the rest of our lives, I'd hope."

House frowned. "Don't be a pedant. Take the cigar. I brought some Febreze, too."

"Good enough for me," Wilson said, and took the cigar as Cameron pushed the door open.

"We got your damn pretzels," she said. "What are you doing?"

"House rules!" said House. "You have to have a cigar and it has to be touching your skin at all times. I don't care if you keep it in your mouth or hold it, there will be no pocketing my fine smokeables. Lighting up is optional. Oh, and Cameron - it has to be visible skin." She blushed and glared at him but took a cigar. Chase and Foreman looked much more pleased about the situation, and Foreman drew the cigar under his nose.

"Smells good. Are we playing poker?"

"Indeed we are," said House. "You are all going to give me a lot of money today, but that's okay. My kid only gets born once and I'm sure you're in the mood to make a joyful noise about it or find another job." He produced a deck of cards from his pocket. "No limits Texas Hold 'Em. Sit down and ante up."

They had played for a couple of hours before House's pager started rattling on the desk in the other room, where Wilson had put it after House checked it obsessively for half an hour. Cameron had her cigar wedged in the neck of her shirt, which had caused both Chase and Wilson to misplace more than one bet. Foreman was smoking the end of his with evident satisfaction and holding his own in the betting. House dropped his cards and bolted for the other room, grabbing for his pager.

"They're not going to start without you!" Wilson called after him, but House was out the door, and Wilson shrugged. "Whose bet?"

House ran down the stairs, half because he could and half because he didn't want to wait for the elevator. He scrubbed up quickly and almost bounded into the OR, where Cuddy was lying on the table surrounded by her surgeon and the anesthetist.

"You didn't have to run," she said. "We were waiting."

"Just making sure," he said, a little out of breath. "How are you doing?"

"I'm fine," she said. "A little chilly, but that comes of not really wearing clothes."

He prowled around her. "Hey, totally shaved. Interesting." He looked up at the surgeon. "Well?"

"We were waiting to make sure that the spinal took, since we used the minimum dosage to decrease the risk to her and the baby," said the surgeon patiently. "Can you feel this, Doctor Cuddy?" He pressed against her abdomen.

"Nope," she said. "Let's do this."

"Will I be in the way if I hold her hand?" asked House. "Bear in mind that I don't care if you say yes."

"That should be fine," said the surgeon, clearly warned about House. "Doctor, if at any time you want the curtain up, just tell us. We don't usually take it down, but Doctor Graham told us that Doctor House insisted."

"She knows what guts look like. She went to med school too," said House.

"It's a little different when they're your own," she said, squeezing his fingers, "but yes, please leave it down."

"I'm making the initial incision," the surgeon announced, and the nurses took their positions.

"Narrate for me," Cuddy whispered, so House peered around the curve of her stomach.

"Just making incisions," he said. "Incisions. More incisions. Good news. You're all pink inside just like everyone else."

"I wish I could see," she said.

"You can't be elevated or your uterus will be at a bad angle," said the surgeon. "Are you experiencing any pain?"

"Just in my hand," she said, and House loosened his grip a little.

"Sorry. It's just weird. I've seen you naked, but never skinless. More incisions."

The surgeon leaned back and let the nurse dab at the blood in the wound. "We're down to the uterus," he said. "From here, it should be easy."

Afterwards, House wasn't quite sure what had happened. There was some movement of the knife, some gesture of the hands, and then they put a baby in his arms and the nurse came around with a bulb to suction the fluid from its nose and mouth. The baby started to cry, loud hearty squalling, but it sounded like a fanfare to House. Cuddy started crying, and then he thought they were fiddling with the placenta and dosing her with something and sewing her up, but he was watching the tiny mouth and fingers of his child.

"Wipe him with this," said the nurse and handed him a warm damp cloth. His son was red and wrinkled, with a lot of silky dark hair plastered to his head. House gently washed away as much of the blood as he could, and the stickiness of the birth fluids, and held him close to Cuddy.

"Look what we did," he murmured. "Look what we did."

"Caleb," she said, and touched his foot with one finger. The nurse bustled here and there, tying off the umbilical and cutting it. "Ten toes," Cuddy said in her throaty voice full of tears.

"Ten fingers," said House. "Two eyes. Your nose, poor kid." She laughed.

"We're going to take you to the recovery room now, Doctor," said the nurse, shouldering House gently out of the way. "Doctor House can come too, but first we need to weigh your baby and make sure everything's fine."

"I'll see you in a moment, sweetheart," House promised, and kissed her forehead before they wheeled her out, and he didn't think until later that he'd never used an endearment for Cuddy before, not a standard issue one, but he liked the feel of it. The nurse weighed the baby and did the Apgar, stuck him with Vitamin K and did a few other things House wasn't sure of.

"So?" he demanded.

The nurse smiled. "Your son is fine," she said. "Eight on the Apgar. You can put that on his preschool résumé. Seems perfectly healthy, though of course we'll be doing more checkups later."

House's arms ached for the weight of his son. "Can you wrap him up? I think he needs to eat."

"Doctor House, we have done this before," said the nurse, but she swaddled Caleb in a diaper and a soft blue blanket and handed him back. "Don't forget to support his neck."

House was still wearing scrubs and the stupid paper hat, but he didn't care. He sat on the edge of Cuddy's bed and handed her the baby, who had stopped crying and was making smacking noises. "Here. Give him a chance at the funbags. Little guy's had nothing to play with for the last nine months except his own thumb," he said, and Cuddy pretended to scowl at him. She looked a little tired, but she was beaming and she had never looked more beautiful to him. Little tendrils of hair fell around her face and her lips were very red. "God, I love you," he said.

"I love you too," she said, and lifted Caleb to her breast. "We did good."

"We certainly did." He leaned forward and kissed her, careful of the new sutures on her stomach and the child between them. Caleb nursed enthusiastically, his tiny hands clutching at Cuddy's breast. Cuddy bent her head over to watch him, the curve of her neck very sweet, and she sang tuneless nothings to the baby. House watched the two of them until Caleb started to fall asleep and the nurse came back.

"Ah. Right on time," she said. "Doctor Cuddy, you should get some rest. Doctor House, you should go for a while. Your baby's just going to be asleep, and we have a few more tests to do. Doctor Graham told me I wasn't allowed to let you get in the way and that you had a poker game to win anyway."

"Got to support the family," he said, not wanting to leave, but the nurse had gathered Caleb up to take him to the nursery, and Cuddy did look very tired. "Lisa," he said.

"Go play," she told him, reaching for his hand, "but I'm warning you, none of those cigars are coming into the house."

He smiled. "Same old dictator Cuddy. Sleep, sweetheart. You definitely earned it." He kissed her, lightly, and she was asleep almost before he'd left the room. He changed out of the scrubs and walked back up to his office slowly by way of the nursery, but his son wasn't on display yet. He was still caught in the shock of the moment, the knowledge that he was really a father now. It was terrifying. He couldn't stop smiling. He wanted to dance. He wanted to stretch out next to Cuddy and watch her breathing. He wanted to count his son's eyelashes.

Instead, he pushed open the door to his office. Wilson looked up.

"Well?"

"Caleb Cuddy-House, middle name undetermined. Eight pounds, eleven ounces. Ten fingers, ten toes, an absurd amount of hair, and Cuddy's nose."

"Mazel tov," said Wilson earnestly, and raised his cup of coffee. The team toasted him too, and in the rush of his joy, House wanted to tell them all how much they meant to him. He took a deep breath and opened his mouth. They all look at him curiously, and then he just grinned instead of whooping his delight, and sat down in his chair. He picked up his cigar and put it between his teeth, missing Cuddy and Caleb, loving this place life had brought him to.

"Who's dealing?"


End file.
